BlueNotes shirt-fronted Young with the question, should more bankers be novelists?

Illustration: John Shakespeare.Credit:John Shakespeare

How could he resist.

"Business writing is littered with cliches and euphemisms. Writing a novel in your spare time should get you out of the habit of saying 'restructure' when you mean firing people, or citing 'synergies' when you don't really have a plan. Finding the courage to be honest will clear your brain – and get you listened to," said Young, whose first erotic novel, Partners: love is a law unto itself, has been breathlessly referred to as the business world's equivalent of the hit novel Fifty Shades of Grey.

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But writing has more utility than merely polishing communication and presentation skills, it can help unlock a banker's inner Sherlock Holmes, reckons Young.

"Novelists become connoisseurs of motivation and deceit. So do bankers. If you're considering making a term loan, you want to think about what the borrower's agenda is – and not just what the chief executive says he plans to do. Writing a novel with an unreliable narrator will show you what people are capable of.

"Bankers need to know what people are capable of – they mustn't be starry-eyed about humanity – but they also have to assess particular individuals. Successful bankers turn out to be good judges of character."

Imagine if the CBA director had devoted these skills to a short story about wealth management at a major bank – a story of fraud, greed and deceit that would be all too believable for some bank customers.

Polite to a fault

Speaking of ANZ, its ever courteous chair David Gonski had his unflappable charm on full display at the bank's annual general meeting in Melbourne on Thursday.

One (very) disgruntled shareholder didn't hold back with a very uncharitable character assessment of the eminent businessman.

After a rant about white-collar crime, he offered this up: "You are just sly, sleazy, corrupt scum, David Gonski, you shouldn't be in this position."

He then challenged Gonski to "do some searching for the truth", adding "let's see what you're made of".

And how did Gonski respond?

"Well you've just told me what I'm made of," he said politely.

"Thank you for your comment, I hope that you feel better later in the day."

The downside of his very polite approach to shareholders with questions was a meeting that dragged on for almost 3½ hours.

Ka-ching at Aristocrat

Who says pokies don't pay up.

Aristocrat Leisure's boss Jamie Odell has seen his pay more than double last year, trousering $5.7 million in cash and shares compared to $2.2 million in the previous year.

This included a $1.6 million cash jackpot linked to Aristocrat's $US1.28 billion purchase of US-based Video Gaming Technologies in July.

His 680,000 shares have also done well. Aristocrat has added more than $2 to its share price over the last year.

CBD can't wait to see what Odell gets this year. Especially if Aristrocrat actually reports a profit.

Curtis farewells Lynas

Lynas chairman Nick Curtis has finally announced his exit date and a replacement to steer the rare earths miner into an uncertain future.

Downer EDI chairman Mike Harding is taking Nick's role as of January 1.

Curtis makes his final exit from the company he has run for the past 14 years on February 1.

Having plunged to 14-year lows this month, Lynas shares perked up at the news, recording double digit gains to close at 5.5¢.

Heavy users sway data

It isn't often that an equity research team has to admit that the data used for their research may show a little internal bias, but you can't accuse Nic Moore's mob at the silver doughnut of hiding this fact with its Macquarie Taxi Tracker, which tries to gauge the ebb and flow of taxi service marketshare.

A report from the equity research crew on Cabcharge reported that its Tracker data is "based on work-related taxi travel by Macquarie employees and thus care should be taken in extrapolating findings to the general population".

It notes that employees are highly concentrated in Sydney "with a disproportionate amount of travel to/from airports".